Groundbreaking musical 'Rent' speaks to a new generation

Thursday

Apr 6, 2017 at 3:11 PMApr 6, 2017 at 4:01 PM

By R. Scott Reedy, Daily News Correspondent

Before there was “Hamilton,” there was “Rent.”

A musical about a band of struggling young artists living on New York’s lower East Side in the shadow of HIV/AIDS – with music, lyrics, and book by Jonathan Larson – “Rent” became a must-see sensation when it opened on Broadway on April 29, 1996. It wasn’t just a hit, or even a mega-hit, it was a phenomenon. Self-described “Rent-heads” were legion, loyally lining up outside the Nederlander Theatre to see the show literally dozens of times.

Boston audiences were quick to embrace the Tony- and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Rent,” too. When it made its first national tour stop at the Shubert Theatre in November 1996, the box office lines were out the door and down Tremont Street, fueling what became a record-breaking 29-week run.

The rock musical, inspired by Puccini’s La Bohème, returned to the Shubert for a sold-out six-week run in 1999, and broke the all-time box office record for a weeklong musical engagement when it played the Wang Theatre in 2001. When “Rent” opens at the Boch Center Shubert Theatre next week, on its 20th anniversary tour, it will be its 8th visit to Boston.

“Each time is a little different. You have to stick to what the show is, of course, and how well that works really depends on who you have in it. We got very lucky and we have a very talented cast, but they’re very young. A few of them weren’t even been born when the show first opened,” says Evan Ensign, who is re-staging the current tour based on Michael Greif’s original direction and acknowledges that much has changed in 21 years.

“The mortality issues of AIDS don’t exist anymore. So in order to understand what that was like, we watch documentaries about what the mortality rates once were. As a company, we also talk about what life was like before social media. We type our insults and fighting words now. We’re individually engaged via social media, but not in the broader ways that we used to be. Everything happens from a distance now.”

That even applies to visits to rehearsals by two cast members from the original Broadway production.

“We had Adam Pascal (Roger Davis) and Anthony Rapp (Mark Cohen) on Skype to wish the current cast well and share some of their memories. And Daphne Rubin-Vega (Mimi Marquez) and other alumni came by to watch rehearsals. So many ‘Rent’ alumni are doing incredibly well, but they still love this show,” says Ensign of a group that includes Idina Menzel, Jesse L. Martin, and Taye Diggs, among many.

And while Ensign did not know Jonathan Larson – who suffered an aortic dissection and died unexpectedly on January 25, 1996, at age 36, the morning of the first off-Broadway preview of “Rent” – he knows he will never be forgotten.

“When Jonathan passed away, his uncle, a woodworker, made a plaque that reads, ‘Thank you, Jonathan Larson’ to hang backstage. We have a copy of that plaque with us on the road and every day, before they go on, each cast member touches it for good luck.”

Larson’s rock-infused score, with songs like “Seasons of Love,” “Take Me or Leave Me,” and "La Vie Bohème,” and his compelling characters ensure that his masterwork will continue to stand the test of time.

“The last time I worked on this show was five years ago and coming back to it has been joyous. How to make sure the show is current is always very exciting to me. Times have changed, of course, but these characters are so well written and developed that everybody can still relate to their experiences. A lot of them are messed up, but also really wonderful,” explained Ensign by telephone last week from New York.

“I stuck mostly to the original because I’ve worked with Michael Greif for so many years now. As I always do, I tried to please the text first. It’s a play about unconventional characters whose lives intersect in some very challenging times. They come together as a family and realize that important thing in life is love. The score stands up, too, because it is so beautiful and has such heart.”

Splitting his time between New York and London where he is resident director for “The Phantom of the Opera,” Ensign has been involved with “Rent” for over 19 of its more than 20-year history. On the current tour, he is part of a creative team that includes three people from the original Broadway production, choreographer Marlies Yearby, costume designer Angela Wendt, and musical supervisor Tom Weil, who is also responsible for additional arrangements.

“We were all in Detroit recently on this tour, as we had been 18 years ago. There were huge crowds at the stage door then and there were huge crowds now - many original ‘Rent-heads’ and many new ones,” says Ensign. “We couldn’t help but think, ‘We’re doing something right.’”